Algeria Military Plane Crash Kills 257

At least 257 people died after a military plane crashed near the Boufarik airbase outside the Algerian capital, Algiers on Wednesday.

The local media reports that most of the dead are army personnel and their families. Ten crew members also died in the deadly crash.

Ennahar TV quoted an Algerian ruling party official as saying that 26 people onboard were members of the Polisario Front, a separatist movement in West Sahara - a territory also claimed by Morocco.

The cause of the crash remains unclear and an investigation has been launched.

Moreover, Algerie24, a local news website, said the plane was heading to the western Algerian city of Bechar.

The New York Times reports the country’s deadliest accident until April 11, was in July 2014, when an Air Algérie jetliner traveling from Burkina Faso to Algeria crashed in the desert in Mali, killing all 116 people on board, including 54 French citizens. A French investigation into the crash blamed pilot error.

In February of that year, an American-built C-130 Hercules transport plane of the Algerian military, carrying 78 personnel and their families crashed into a mountain in the northeastern province of Oum El Bouaghi during bad weather. One person survived.

Six people died when an Algerian Air Force C-130 crashed into a hillside in France in November 2012.

By Thea Morrison

Photo source: USA Today